Things don’t always turn out as they were meant, and that’s not always a bad thing. Take the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, for example. It’s one of the nation’s leading science museums, heavily focused on hands-on and how-does-it-do-that, but that wasn’t the plan at all!
Early machines (a sewing machine and a typewrite) are paired with models showing how force is transmitted from one place to another to operate them.
When the Franklin Institute was founded in 1824 and named after the scientist/statesman, its goal was “Promotion of the Mechanic Arts.” And that meant studying and applying science conduction research, sort of following in Franklin’s own footsteps.
How to crush a trashcan: turn a crank to turn the gears that apply the force. Do it 1,200,000 times over four months, and the can is as flat as ‘flat earth.’
“With a view further to develop the resources of the union, increase the national independence, call forth the ingenuity and industry of the people, and thereby increase the comforts of the community at large,” as its brochure said, it sponsored research into steam engines and water power, ran schools, gave medals and grants for research and inventions and published one of the leading early science journals in America.
More marvelous gears and levers: 19th century Swiss ‘mechanician’ Henri Maillardet built an automaton that could draw four intricate images and write three poems. Damaged in a fire, it was repaired by the Franklin in 1928, and immediately began writing and drawing again! More details HERE!
That role continued all through the 19th century and into the 20th; the Franklin Institute hosted the first demonstration of all-electronic television in 1934, just before it moved into its present building, having long outgrown its original headquarters.
Machine or sculpture? Its maker, Ben Trautman, is sculptor and architect, and wanted to show the ‘delicacy and fluidity of mechanical motion and the sculptural form of mechanical sculptures.’
Along the way, the Institute gathered a large amount of artifacts, machinery and more, used in its research and teaching. Its new building, opened in 1934, was designed from the start to give visitors hands-on access to most of the exhibits.
It’s not always the flashiest of spaces, and there are lots of odds and ends in unexpected corners, but an afternoon there lets you see how much is focused on the ‘inside story,’ and on leaving room for kids not just to admire but to ‘play’ with science concepts.
In the electrictiy section, we get back to Franklin himself, and discover that he is the one who named battery ‘battery.’ He took nine Leyden jars, an early means of capturing and then discharging electricity, and figured out how to wire them together to store and discharge more. He named them after a group of cannon working together—a battery.
There’s plenty of ‘working’ space for kids of different ages to explore and test using different kinds of materials, from the purely visual to large manipulatives to making devices.
Younger ages are catered for, too…
Blocks and construction. Oh, yeah. That reminds me to show you the Franklin Institute’s Lego display, And, from the lobby, the Franklin National Memorial.
A giant heart is both a learning tool and a fantastically popular selfie site with visiting school groups. Below that, a visitor races against a video in an area concerned with sports medicine and engineering.
Light and telescope areas lead into the Institute’s space exhibits, which also include a full-scale version of the space shuttle that was built as a trainer.
But I’ve saved my personal favorite for the last…peeking through that door is Baldwin 60000, the largest steam locomotive ever built, so big that no railroad actually bought one, although it ran all over the country as a demonstrator in the late 20s and early 30s.
It got its number by being the 60,000th locomotive built by Baldwin, which was a Philadelphia company for nearly its entire history. It was intended as a model for future development, but the railroads weren’t convinced its benefits outweighed a number of disadvantages. Read more about that HERE
Note the size of the engine relative to the size of people in the exhibit
When it appeared that no railroad wanted it enough to buy, Baldwin donated it to the Franklin Institute, which fortunately had not finished building the museum. Fortunate, because the only way to deliver it was to lay rail into the building, run the engine in, and then pick up the extra track and close the outside wall. It would be almost impossible to ever remove it in one piece.
And, one of the first locomotives in Pennsylvania, The Rocket, built by John Stephenson’s company in London in 1838. It’s sitting on a piece of original 1838 track. This particular engine stayed in service until 1879, and was shown at several World’s Fairs after that.
Visiting Info:
Open 10-6, Wednesday through Sunday. Admission $23, with small discounts for children, seniors and military. Tickets include Fels Planetarium
